Home » News » US Stock Exchanges Stabilize, Await Fed Minutes as China Worries Persist

US Stock Exchanges Stabilize, Await Fed Minutes as China Worries Persist

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – After the previous day’s losses, the US stock exchanges are on a stabilization course on Wednesday. At the end of the first hour of trading, all three major indices were slightly up. The Dow Jones Industrial led the way, up 0.30 percent to 35,052.20 points, while the broader S&P 500 rose 0.12 percent to 4443.08 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 rose just 0.05 percent to 15,045.03 points.

Investors are awaiting the minutes of the US Federal Reserve’s July meeting, which could provide more insight into future interest rates later in New York trading. In the background, however, worries about China continue to smolder, especially since the US rating agency Fitch announced that it might want to reconsider its assessment of the creditworthiness of Chinese government bonds.

“Despite numerous government stimulus measures, China’s economic problems continue to weigh on the markets,” said a broker. The Chinese yuan edged closer to its lowest level in 16 years against the US dollar. The fact that US industry increased production again in July after two consecutive declines did not help the markets either.

Among individual stocks, Target shares provided some support for the retail sector, up 4.8 percent. Against the background of very low expectations, as pointed out by Bernstein Research expert Dean Rosenblum, the discounter surprised with better-than-expected earnings per share and a surprisingly strong gross margin in the second quarter. In the wake of this, the titles of the retail giant Walmart in the Dow moved just under 0.1 percent up.

The stocks of the chip group Intel, which shelved its plans for the multi-billion dollar takeover of the Israeli semiconductor group Tower Semiconductor due to a lack of approvals, were 1.2 percent weaker in the Dow. Even if this was not seen as a big surprise by experts, the takeover target’s shares fell by eight percent. Bernstein expert Stacy Rasgon told Intel that the failure was somewhat disappointing in view of the planned expansion of production capacities.

On the Nasdaq, Tesla shares initially continued their recent slide, but then recovered. Since their interim high in July, however, they have lost more than a fifth of their value. Price reductions continue to upset investors: The electric car manufacturer reduced its prices for certain models in China for the second time within three days.

Otherwise, all eyes were on the shares of the Vietnamese electric car manufacturer VinFast, which had started brilliantly on the Nasdaq the day before. After the course had multiplied, a fifth of the market value was lost again. With its strong debut, Vinfast, which went public via a special purpose vehicle, easily outperformed the valuations of the major US automakers Ford and General Motors./tih/jha/

2023-08-16 14:44:09
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